Seventeen Transgender Killings Contrast With Growing Visibility

The brutal death of a 36-year-old transgender woman in Kansas City, Mo., is the latest in what activists are calling an alarming rise in anti-transgender violence.

Tamara Dominguez, who was reported to have migrated from Mexico to escape discrimination, was hit by a vehicle early Saturday and run over several times, making her the 17th transgender person reported killed this year, according to data compiled by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

Most of the victims have been black or Hispanic.

By comparison, 12 killings of transgender people were recorded by the coalition in 2014, said Sue Yacka, a spokeswoman.

Transgender activists believe the killing in Kansas City was motivated by Ms. Dominguez’s gender identity. Randall Jenson, a representative for the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project who has been working with Ms. Dominguez’s family, characterized her death as an “intentional act” meant to send a message.

And those are just the killings that are reported, said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center. Mr. Hayashi said that recent media coverage had brought increased visibility to each victim, but that the killings reflected an “ongoing” state of crisis for the community.

Activists say transgender women of color, who are often poor, are most at risk of violence.

Hoping to increase visibility for the killings, transgender activists and allies are sharing pictures of victims as their deaths are reported.

Also alarming to advocates is that several of the 17 people killed have been slain just this summer. Other recent cases include India Clarke, a 25-year-old black transgender woman who was found dead in July from a gunshot in Tampa Bay, Fla.; Kenton Haggard, a 66-year-old who activists say was transgender, and who was killed in a stabbing in July in Fresno, Calif., that was caught on video; and Kandis Capri, a 35-year-old transgender woman, who was shot and killed in Phoenix on Aug. 11.

Laverne Cox, the transgender actress, said in a statement on Thursday that a lack of national outrage over the killings “adds insult to injury.”

She said transgender women of color exist at the “intersection of multiple forms of violence which are also about race, misogyny, poverty and a system that reinforces the fallacy that we shouldn’t exist and don’t exist.”

A suspect was arrested and charged with Ms. Clarke’s killing after the police found DNA evidence and a condom that contained fluid in her car. There have been no arrests in Ms. Capri’s death, according to ABC 15 in Phoenix, but her family is seeking a hate crime investigation. And authorities say there is no update in Kenton Haggard’s case.

Mr. Hayashi said that transgender people faced a system of discrimination — which includes lack of access to health care, education, housing and job resources — that can result in people who put themselves in “really vulnerable positions as far as the violence that we’re seeing.”

The organization receives about 2,500 calls a year from transgender people and their families seeking assistance, Mr. Hayashi said. The demand often outweighs the resources.

Mr. Jenson, of the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project, said that lengthy police investigations, sometimes carried out in a way that activists feel lack dignity and thoroughness, had sometimes led to tension between officers and the communities they serve.

“We get told by agencies that we’re hindering the process or hurting our communities because they don’t understand hate crimes or how it could work,” Mr. Jenson said. “It’s not a community’s job to have to educate themselves on such a nuanced system and hate crime laws that do not actually work.”

Tension has also occurred over how the gender of a person who either publicly or privately identifies as transgender is reflected in a police report: In Tampa, Kansas City and Fresno, the police referred to Ms. Clarke, Ms. Dominguez and Kenton Haggard by their legal — male — names, which offends activists. And questions have been raised, particularly in the case of Kenton Haggard, over whether the victim publicly identified as transgender at all, though activists include the killing in the summer’s count of fatalities.

Lt. Joe Gomez, the public information officer for the Fresno police, said gender was not a factor in efforts to investigate the death. On Thursday, he said that criticism of the police had been “blown out of proportion.”

“It’s just not an issue in this case,” he said. “We are hoping the community comes forward with more information on the suspect.”

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